This is driven by the fallacy that debt service, and only debt service, matters. But the combination of two forces: titanic amounts of ever-increasing interest and a precipitously falling developed-world birth rate that has population skewing ever-more-heavily toward GDP-non-contributory retirees leaves the world paying through the teeth for artificial current "growth" that it can neither afford nor sustain.

Global debt rose to a record $237 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2017, more than $70 trillion higher from a decade earlier, according to an analysis by the Institute of International Finance.

Among mature markets, household debt as a percentage of GDP hit all-time highs in Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. That’s a worrying signal, with interest rates beginning to rise globally. Ireland and Italy are the only major countries where household debt as a percentage of GDP is below 50 percent.

Among emerging markets, household debt to GDP is approaching parity in South Korea at 94.6 percent.